A controversial Labour Party attack advert claiming Rishi Sunak does not think child sex abusers should go to prison was hatched in an attempt to neutralise headlines describing Sir Keir Starmer as ‘Sir Softy’ for his record on crime, insiders have told The Mail on Sunday.
Senior Labour figures were today still trying to defend the tweet in which an image next to a picture of the Prime Minister read: ‘Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t.’
Deploying Ministry of Justice data, it said that under the Tories, ‘4,500 adults convicted of sexually assaulting children under-16 served no prison time’. Despite a chorus of disapproval from Labour and Conservative MPs, Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry said critics of the social media post were ‘wrong’.
Last night, it was reported that Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had not been informed or consulted about the advert – despite being in overall charge of crime policy.
Labour sources told The Observer that Ms Cooper and most of the Shadow Cabinet had been caught unawares when it was released on social media.
The controversial Labour Party attack advert claiming Rishi Sunak does not think child sex abusers should go to prison was hatched in an attempt to neutralise headlines describing Sir Keir Starmer as ‘Sir Softy’
The image next to a picture of the Prime Minister read: ‘Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t’
Insiders said the poster had been produced as part of a policy push by Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed. Ms Cooper’s intervention triggered fury within Labour.
A Labour insider said: ‘This is sheer cowardice from a serial failure who should have left frontline politics long ago. If Yvette disagrees so strongly with pointing out the Tories’ dismal record on crime, she knows where the door is. She still has delusions of being leader, but leaders don’t stab people in the back.’
This newspaper understands that senior party figures were enraged by stories last month about the Labour leader’s career as a lawyer, which overshadowed a speech by him on anti-social behaviour.
One report highlighted the case of Tajay Thompson, 26, who served half of a 15-month sentence for drug dealing and was set to be deported back to Jamaica in early 2020.
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But after his flight was grounded by a legal challenge, when the future Labour leader campaigned against it, Thompson went on to beat two women. In one case in South London, he threw a 27-year-old woman with learning difficulties to the ground, then stamped on her, breaking her ribs before robbing her of £10.
The victim’s mother was quoted as saying: ‘Keir Starmer should be ashamed of himself. If that man had been deported he could never have done this to my daughter.’
It is understood senior Labour figures were so furious about the stories – and ‘Sir Softy’ headlines – they decided to go on the ‘front foot’ with the child abuse tweet.
Labour MPs are pointing the finger at Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign director, for the campaign. He is seen as Sir Keir’s most influential adviser and has devised the ‘Operation Trident’ strategy, a triple-pronged approach to getting him into No 10 that has three distinct phases – changing the Labour Party, introducing Sir Keir personally to the public, then setting out Labour’s agenda.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had not been informed or consulted about the advert – despite being in overall charge of crime policy
Shadow Ministers have also expressed concern about the role of Deborah Mattinson, Sir Keir’s director of strategy, arguing that she is ‘overdependent’ on focus groups. Labour former Home Secretary David Blunkett told the Mail: ‘My party is better than this… when baseless allegations and spurious slurs replace fair and robust political debate, the foundations of our democracy are compromised.’
But Ms Thornberry told the BBC: ‘I heard a lot of people who I like and respect saying they felt very uncomfortable about it. Some people said that they thought it was racist. I think they’re wrong.’
Asked if she genuinely thinks Mr Sunak held these views, Ms Thornberry said: ‘If he believes that everyone responsible for child abuse should get a custodial sentence, why are so many not getting a custodial sentence? He is the Prime Minister and that is a legitimate question for the Opposition to ask.’
Tory MP Laura Trott questioned Sir Keir’s ‘integrity’, calling him a ‘political opportunist who’s just not fit to lead the country’.
In 2012, when Sir Keir was Director of Public Prosecutions, he admitted that a generation of girls had been betrayed by the justice system’s flawed approach to sexual exploitation.
A Labour source said: ‘The adverts were signed off collectively above staff level.’
